Reviewed by Ciaran Farrell
Theresa Cheung is an author and dream decoder, called the Queen of Dreams as she has published many books on dreams including The Dream Cure and The Dream Dictionary from A to Z. She has become a media personality and has appeared on ITV’s This Morning, and Capital FM as well as being featured in Cosmopolitan, Good House Keeping, Red, Grazia, Heat, Glamour, Vice, Bustle, and many more.
Theresa has a degree in theology and English from King’s Collage, Cambridge, and a masters degree in English from King’s Collage, London University. She has worked closely with scientists who are engaged in neuroscientific and dream research, including Dr Julia Mossbridge. Theresa has appeared on many British and US TV and radio shows in connection with this, and has decoded the dreams of numerous celebrities and social media influencers.
The dedication of Theresa’s book is to the belief in the beautiful future of your own dreams and the ghost of what is yet to come. By this she means that one can harness the precognitive power of dreams and dream making to create a new and desirable future and dream your way through the necessary milestones to achieve it. In the Introduction she sets out her manifesto for people being forward thinking precognitive beings with a sixth sense that is hardwired into our DNA on which her dreamwork is based.
Dreaming of your Future is not an ordinary self-help and personal growth type of book. It is also a workbook with examples and dreamwork exercises to be undertaken as a practical ‘how to’ guide. There is an appendix dedicated to The Science of Precognition, an extensive list of Recommended Resources, and a long and detailed scientifically orientated Bibliography, as well as a comprehensive Index which provides an A to Z of the dream symbols listed in the book. There are shortform references which link to the resources and bibliographic sections that provide a full set of references to scientific papers as well as to other useful works. These are located in the footnotes of the pages in the first part of the book. This is done to aid the reader’s understanding of the underpinning of the author’s arguments from a scientific perspective. It is also for the reader’s convenience which adds an extra dimension to Dreaming of your Future as a useful reference book.
The book itself is split into two parts. Part one is entitled, It’s Dream time! It contains four chapters, Powered by Your Dreams, A Natural Born Precognitive, Precognitive Living, and Prepare to Dream Your Future. In these chapters Theresa sets out the mission she has undertaken in her manifesto to guide the reader through the steps the readers needs to take to become a fully aware precognitive dreamers who can shape their own future through their own personal guided dreamwork. She backs this up with scientific arguments and considerations in a well thought through and informative way for the lay reader and citizen scientist. At the beginning of each of these chapters she sets out an informal agenda for the chapter. Theresa then goes on to introduce new ideas and concepts as well as practical dreamwork exercises based on them, which are designed to take the reader to the next practical level of becoming a fully-fledged precognitive dreamer. She also provides an informal summary of the essential points she has covered at the end of each chapter.
Part Two is entitled The Precognitive Dream Directory and contains a Directory of Precognitive Dream Threads as well as an A-to-Z listing of specific entries for individual dream subjects, topics and scenarios. The style and type of these entries is modern and intuitive based on modern concepts and ideas of dream content and their meaning, rather than a reworking or transposition from Freudian or Jungian dream interpretation. Theresa has developed and refined her two linked dream directories over time through her own experience, dreamwork and research, and her previous books on the subject.
The central concept behind Dreaming of your Future is that the reader undertakes the guided dreamwork exercises set out in the first four chapters of Theresa’s book and then compares their dreams with the dream interpretations in the second part of the book. The reader is expected to keep a detailed dream diary which the reader will be expected use at a later stage to re-script their dreams in order to be able to dream of an attractive future, and be able to bring this new future into waking reality. In this sense, what Theresa aims to do is to help the reader to set up a physiological and psychological biofeedback loop between the reader’s conscious and unconscious waking mind, and their unconscious or semiconscious mind as an active, rather than a passive dreamer.
In chapter one, Powered by Your Dreams, Theresa sets out a new way of thinking about precognition and non-linear time and how this applies to dreamwork in the waking and dream worlds. The similarities and differences between precognition, intuition, premonitions, synchronicity, wishful and negative thinking, and déjà vu and déjà rêvé as the previously dreamt are explained. The differences between literal and symbolic dream meanings are discussed in relation to dream decoding and the use of the dream directories.
In chapter two, A Natural Born Precognitive, Theresa sets out the cultural and scientific basis for precognition as a natural human ability that can be enhanced and cultivated. The concept of precognitive dreamwork as a personal time machine which forms a vehicle to achieve precognitive goals which can be set by the reader is introduced and the reader encouraged to use this technique in practice.
In chapter Three, Precognitive Living, Theresa describes how one can embody the lessons and objectives of the previous chapter in a personal and practical way which prepares the reader to take their precognitive dreamwork to the next level though daily meditation and affirmations. The extended use of the biofeedback system is introduced to the reader and instructions given about how it can be used in practice to define and refine precognitive dreams to achieve the reader’s desired goals.
In Chapter Four, Prepare to Dream Your Future, Theresa introduces dream rescripting and the need to ‘think backwards and dream forwards’ as a conceptual tool to achieve this. The issue of nightmares is dealt with, and the concepts of dream-scaping or incubation and lucid dreaming are introduced as means of achieving precognitive dreamwork goals.
In the book’s final chapter, Conclusion, Theresa introduces life as a dream so one can dream of the life that one would like to live, and bring it about through precognitive dreamwork.
Dreaming of your Future is written in a direct and compelling yet open, modern, transparent and more importantly, a direct personal style of writing. This engages the reader and draws them into a new world of possibilities through the prospect of being able to achieve the book’s promise to be able to precognitively shape one’s own destiny through dreamwork.
I do not think it is appropriate for me to comment on how successful one might be in doing so. I think this matter would best be left to readers to make up their own minds when they read Theresa’s book. However, what I will say is that I think the author has produced a truly remarkable work by blending together cutting-edge science from a lay perspective, a self-help and personal growth book, and an informal reference work on the subject which applies the scientific method to precognition and dreamwork.
This is a unique combination when combined with the opportunity for each reader to take an empirical journey along with Theresa as their guide into a personal sleep laboratory and conduct their own personal and practical dream experiments and their own research based on them. I think this will appeal to all kinds of psychical researchers and citizen scientists. I would therefore recommend Theresa’s book on this basis and also because it is a good, interesting and intriguing read which applies the scientific method to the challenging area of pioneering dream research.